Metaphysical Principles to Move Beyond Addiction

In this interview episode, Kelli Malcom and I discuss addictions, recovery, and healing from a metaphysical perspective. Enjoy!

Transcript

Hello, everyone. This is your host, Keri Logan at Master the Upper Rooms. And today I have a special guest, Kelly Malcolm. And I am so thrilled to talk to her today and see her insight and her perspective, especially on the area of addiction. And she has a wealth of knowledge. She is the founder of How to Live Fully, which helps people navigate life challenges. And through her holistic coaching approach, She also uses tarot wisdom, tarot cards. And she is a practicing family law attorney, a certified life mastery consultant. And she also is the author of Sidestepping the 12 Steps, Using Metaphysical Principles to Move Beyond Addiction. So everyone, I'm welcoming Kelly to the show. How are you today, Kelly? I'm doing well. Thanks so much, Carrie, for having me on the show. I might have a little background noise going on because I share my home with my grandkids. And it's nap time at the moment, which is not always their favorite time of day, right? Well, you know, as an adult, I'm all for naps. I'll take a nap with you. Yeah, I would rather be there than my grandson. But 

Anyway, I apologize if there was any kind of background noise there. It's all good. So I'm really curious because when we had our meet and greet, we discussed addiction and I loved how you shared that a lot of people, when they go to a recovery program, they have these expectations and they want to be, let's say, fixed or cured and a good majority of them don't, they end up back in the same cycle over and over and over again. And I wanted to, Abby wanted to hear your story, your perspective and how you came about all of this in terms of addiction. Yeah. Well, to, to start, you know, I am a, an attorney and, And I used to represent abused and neglected kids. This was in the early 2000s. And a lot of times, kids that end up in foster care or places like that, most times their parents are suffering from addiction or undiagnosed mental health issues. And so, quote, the system, how it would fix it is they would say, just go to rehab. 

And my experience was that people would be in rehab two, three, four times, and it does not, it didn't solve the issue. And then I started looking at kind of the whole basis of the, I guess, model for rehab. And what I learned was it's based on an 85% failure rate. And since I used to be and studied economics in college, the old adage, figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure, kind of started sticking in my mind. And I'm like, why would you keep perpetuating this system when you know it doesn't work? And at the same time, I started looking at some of the underlying principles that were being taught in these rehab places or even AA. And the very first one is defining yourself as an addict, defining yourself as an alcoholic. And most of them will do some wordsmithing and say, well, that's, you know, because they're in denial. There's a big difference between denial and definition. Okay. 

And what I found is that when people define themselves as problems, diseases, they get a mental image because our mind thinks in pictures. And so because of that, what comes to mind is somebody who doesn't have their kids living with them. Some people think of people living under a bridge or homeless people on the street. Right. It's not a positive identity. And most times people that are struggling with addiction issues, it's more what I call an emotional inflammation. It's how they process uncomfortable emotions. And it could be numbing. It could be just not wanting to deal with them. But those emotions are going to come out one way or another. So if you take kind of the principle of I am and tie it to core values and 

it makes a huge difference in people's focus. And so if somebody wanted to say, I am and take a core value of integrity, or some people, I'm artistic, other people, I'm inquisitive. Those lead you down a different path than defining yourself as a problem. And that really was the basis of the book called sidestepping the 12 steps was really starting to look at self-definition and in my view addiction is one path that we grow and it's actually an easy path to grow as we were talking at the meet and greet there are some people that come into this world and they're blind they have cerebral palsy they have autism and that's a path for them to grow spiritually Addiction is no different, except addiction's an easier path. It is, because you can overcome that addiction, but a lot of people, like, you can't overcome cerebral palsy. You know, you just have to learn to, you know, live with it. And a lot of people, what I've kind of noticed in working with people with addiction and 

they've been in rehab a lot is exactly what you said, where they, God, I hate to say this. I mean, it sounds not nice to say it, you know, but it's being honest and transparent is it literally sometimes just feels like it's a system, like it's a place for someone to go to get clean and not have to worry their family and all that. Um, it's very expensive, but they're not really giving you the tools or going to the core issue of why are you drinking or why are you doing these drugs? They're kind of surfacing, you know, like, oh, you know, we're, we're, we're going to do this, but they really don't get to the root of the issue and then focus on that. Okay. Well, 

This stems from something in your childhood. And this is a core belief of maybe I'm not good enough or I don't matter or I'm worthless. And a lot of addictions is I would tell all my clients is you're seeking an outside source of comfort. Yep. Because you're hurting inside. Right. And you're replacing with that because when you do feel better about yourself, you're not going to overeat. You're not going to drink in excess. You're not trying to escape because a lot of those addictive behaviors are escape behaviors. And they're temporary. But the horrible thing about it is it's got a vicious cycle. So you think it's going to give you this. And it temporarily gives you this, but then you come down and you're beating yourself up and you hate yourself for doing it. You feel stupid. You feel worthless, all of this. And so you want to escape some more from feeling so bad. So you have another drink and it just goes around and around and around. It's a vicious cycle that a lot of people deal with. And I want to know your, 

thoughts on this, but a lot of times I do inner child work with people on this. And that's, that's a good place to start, Carrie, because basically if somebody loves themselves and I'm not talking about narcissism and you know, all these other things, but basically just I'm okay. I don't need approval from other people. I like who I am. I like what I'm doing. They don't fall into some of these other traps, but it's when you talk about the inner child, it's the wounding that occurred growing up. And it could have been, you know, a dysfunctional household. It could have been being bullied at school. It could have been that you didn't fit in with, with your peers. And again, you're focusing on the outside and, 

to try and make the inside feel good. And it's reversed. You need to focus on the inside. I am and tie it to values as to who you are. And then your actions will start aligning with who you are. And you won't start seeking approval from other people, situations, things on those lines. Right. No, I fully agree because I tell people, Sometimes we need to parent ourselves. Yes. We really, really do. And God, I just lost my train of thought. Well, and it's also the self-talk, you know, you mentioned for somebody that say, doesn't want to say drink or use drugs, but they, they go, you know, a few days, a few weeks, and then all of a sudden there's a trigger, something happens and they get back into it. 

And then they start beating themselves up and it's gaining perspective. It's like, well, wait a minute. You went this period of time and how were you feeling? How, you know, you were feeling good. What were you doing? And doing some personal self-examination. But in some of these programs, they basically discard any progress you're making. It's like you have to be perfect. You have to, you know, can't drink at all, you know? And, oh, I had one drink on my birthday. I guess I have to go back to square one and start counting all over again. And that was my other issue was the counting. Because what the counting does is basically tell people, this is how long you haven't had it. And for many people, it's not a badge of honor. It's more like, you know, they're gripping, you know, white knuckling it. And it's like, 

Don't worry about when your next drink's going to be. Focus on today. And what are you going to do today that aligns with who you are? Look at, you know, I have in my book, it's an acronym, AA, but it stands for Affirmations and Appreciations. And so it's start appreciating the things that you do have. Start, you know, being grateful for, thank goodness, if I'm going to be on a spiritual growth path today, I chose something easy because I do have control over it. And this will help me get in touch with my emotions and be able to regulate my emotions and not have them overcome me. So there's many good things to take a look at. There is. And I've used hypnotherapy often to help people with addictions. I remember this woman... 

I think it was about 15 years ago, was addicted to Oxycontin. And I didn't know at the time what that was. And I made a, I said, let me research it and I'll make a generalized recording and I will just give it to you and tell me what you think. And she stopped. She completely stopped. And she gave me like amazing testimonial online of how it worked so well because I think a lot of people, when you go to those meetings, you're, and I've been to an AA meeting before, and my observation was they're angry. They're not happy. They're kind of miserable. And what was really odd, and you're going to, you're going to, probably everyone will laugh at this, is when I was walking out with the person that I was with that actually was a member there, and he said to me, 

In the car driving me home, he's like, hey, do you want to go get a beer? Yeah. I was blown away. Like, dude, you're you just left AA. It would be like going to Weight Watchers and you're like, hey, you want to, you know, go get a Frappuccino at Starbucks. Yeah. Yeah. What I wanted to say also in terms of addiction and this and you led me to it. I remember working with this one woman and it was many, many years ago. She was a big head person for a giant hospital and she would drink two bottles of wine a night and she wanted to stop. She was real and she didn't want to go to AA. She didn't want to go to rehab or anything. She had a high stress job and her escape was drinking two bottles of wine. 

And so I told her that I don't want you to tell anybody what you're doing. Just do it. Because a lot of people sometimes have this negative notion of hypnosis. They think, you know, you're going to bark like a dog or quack like a duck, whatever. And the woman stopped drinking and she was fabulous doing so well. She was just over the moon. And one day she came in about two weeks later. And she said to me, Carrie, I need to tell you what happened last night because I almost drank. I almost drank and I remembered your words and your words of wisdom. And I told her that a lot of times I've noticed when someone does, let's say, alternative therapy like hypnosis, there are people that will 

laugh at you and make you feel bad and make you feel stupid. And if you feel that person's going to do that to you, don't share it. Don't. And so she told me that she was upstairs in the bedroom and her husband noticed she wasn't drinking anymore. And I didn't know at the time that her husband was rather verbally abusive. And she shared that he was like, what have you been doing? You know, you're going to AA. Did you take some recovery program? You know, what are you doing? You know, you, you haven't had a drink in two weeks and you seem so much better. And when she said, well, I'm doing hypnosis and that's what worked. She told me he started laughing hysterically and said, well, 

And I'm going to use clean words that she was stupid, said a few words before that, but literally was making her feel so bad about herself. She said she started crying and he then started berating her like, you know, oh, don't, you know, don't be this way. And she said, I wanted to drink so bad, so bad. And I realized why you told me that. do not share this with anybody until I own it. I own it. She said, if this would have happened a week ago, I would have drank. But she said, you got me to that two week Mark where I owned it. It was my personality. It was my new belief that there's always something better to do than drink. And I got it in my head and it stuck. And I was so thankful. I was so blessed. She said, 

she had that experience and shared it because I can, you know, share it with, with the world, but it was a hard lesson for her to learn. Exactly. But it was a lesson, you know, and again, I believe that we're here to learn spiritual lessons and they come in many forms. And as I mentioned earlier, addiction is one form, you know, but if you, If you look at that as kind of this is behavior. And if you go back to what I refer to as the results formula, and it basically says your thoughts cause your feelings. And you know this because if you lose your wallet or you lose your phone, you think, oh, I lost my phone. You panic, right? And you can feel that emotion. And your emotions cause your actions, right? 

And it's your actions that cause the results. Yet most people will look at their results and say that's their cause. Saying that I'm drinking because they did this or that. No, it comes from here, from what you're thinking. And you need to lay the foundation down for who you are. Because once you know who you are, and get the I am statements going in the direction and tie them with your values, that's going to raise, you know, we talked about frequency. Right. That's going to raise your frequency. And so you're not going to be looking at things from a negative perspective. You'll have a different perspective as to maybe how could this benefit me? This situation I may not like at all, you know, and I'm involved in situations where I'm like, not comfortable. 

But I can step outside of it and say, what can I learn from this? What can I take from this? And one of the best words that you can use with people is this phrase, tell me more. Because when you ask, tell me more, if you're in uncomfortable situations, right? It drops defenses, right? but it also opens you up to maybe seeing a different perspective or a different way of looking at things that you hadn't looked at. So back to the results formula, you know, if you're, I'm, you know, I'm a terrible person. I drank, I used, no one's going to like me. I have to hide all of this. You're, you're automatically causing negative emotions, which is automatically going to cause you to do something to get rid of them, which we would call to your, 

normal patterns of drink or use and it becomes a vicious cycle. So where you have to start is at the beginning and that's with your thinking. No, you're exactly, exactly right. And when it goes in terms of affirmations, what I've learned is you have to be congruent with those affirmations or else they mean nothing. And then two is, You have to feel the emotions that you're saying in the affirmation, because if you don't, it's just hollow. It's like the example of me saying in an argument, I love you. But then me having the moment where I'm really loving you and I say, I love you. And you can tell the difference and how I say it and how I emanate it. And that's what I've kind of noticed. 

When I work with people that want to manifest things, let's say in terms that I do use the positive affirmations, but I tell them that when I say it, you can hear my voice. I mean what I say. And, and so I remember, I'll just give this brief example about affirmations. I once was working with this woman that she, had arthritis. And I grabbed that book by Louise Hayes, heal, you know, heal your body. And when I read the probable cause and the affirmation, I looked at the woman, I said, I can't say this to you. And she's like, why this affirmation? And I said, because you just told me you hate yourself. And want me to say, I love myself. You can't, you can't do that. 

And so I said, so how I would word it if I was in your shoes, your situation is I'm making peace with my body. I'm no longer fighting my body or hating my body. I'm just making peace with my body and I'm accepting my body with where it's at right now. And I'm satisfied with my body. And every day I, I trust and I believe that it's getting better and I'm feeling better. And so when I went off these other ways of saying it, she was like, yes, I can say that. And that's the hard thing I really want people to grasp is you can read an affirmation, but if it doesn't vibrate with you on the same level, if there's a disconnect, 

You're wasting your time. I agree with you. And sometimes you just have to start small. Yes. And sometimes, you know, in the world of addiction, it's finding the good, finding the celebration. You know, and for some people, you know, at the very beginning of their journey, it might be, I waited until five o'clock to have a drink. Maybe tomorrow I'll push it back and I won't have one tomorrow. Right. But you start celebrating the steps that you are making instead of beating yourself up for the failures that you've had. Right. Now, I want to shift gears a little bit because you also support people in the area of divorce. Oh, yeah. And I I totally applaud you in this area. Yeah. and I wish when I went through my whole custody battle that I knew someone like you, because there's, there's people that, that, that need that. So what are the things you should do if you are getting divorced? Like what is your professional advice? I, I think number one is that you have to make sure you're emotionally prepared to 

to go through a court process yeah and what that can look like is it's a support group yes you can have friends and family but they're going to get tired of the broken record and um so there are lots of different groups out there you know for divorce recovery churches have it um therapists Because what I find a lot of times is people use, at least me, as their therapist, where I'm like, you would benefit so much more if you were with other people experiencing the same thing so that you don't feel like this is happening to me and I'm the only one on the planet that this is happening to. Because it's not true. Lots of people get divorced. The other thing is identity. People tie themselves and identify with their relationship status. A really good way to get through a divorce is start identifying with who you are as a person, not in relationship to being a mom, being a dad, being a wife, being a husband. Who are you? And then find those values. 

You know, there's the emotional preparation. That's part of it. Then when it comes to the mechanics, you know, it's researching and finding attorneys that are going to line up with you. Read the reviews. Make sure they're attentive. You know, there's some firms out there that take your retainer and you never hear from them and it's gone. There are others that are really good people. that are really focusing on what's in the best interest of your kids. Right. But see, at the end of the day, once the court's gone, once the attorneys are gone, you will be left with whatever agreements that you made. And so will your kids. And your kids didn't ask for this. Right? Right. And so if people would focus on the kids and saying what's in their best interest, 

Kids are going to love both parents regardless of what one parent might think of the other parent. They don't want to hear all the negativity. They don't want to be used as the communication tool between the parties. Let the kids have a childhood. Let the kids go to high school and not be worried about who's going to show up at a football game. And a lot of times what I'll say to my clients is if you want to be invited to their wedding, it's how you're acting right now that's going to make all the difference you know there's the the asset part you know um when it comes to the money and i think then it's what's your relationship with money there's many people that have told me i want to keep the house i said okay that's what you want to do but what i find is most times there's memories in that house 

There's all sorts of things in that house. And six months later, after they fought all over the house, they don't want to live there. They're going to sell it. Yeah. So I think it's really a matter of emotionally preparing for this because it is like a death. The only difference is you're going to keep seeing this person over and over again. Well, and that's a really good point that you made because I think the hardest thing, that I've learned and observed you know personally myself and with other clients is when relationships don't work and you have a child that's involved that child's going to be in your life forever and you need to learn to co-parent together because when you can't co-parent the one that suffers the most is the child 

It really, really is. And they don't like being used as a pawn. You know, tell me what your mom's doing. Tell me what your dad's doing. It's just it's not fair. And like you said, really deep down inside, that child just wants both parents to get along. Yep. And I know the courts do put in, you know, the paperwork to show mutual respect to one another. Some people can do it and some people can't. And I would love anyone that's in that situation that's listening right now to realize that, no, you need to rise above it. And just because this other person isn't willing to grow up and literally change their perspective because that's the hard part is they're stuck in this 3D mentality. Blame. 

It's all your fault. They're stuck in hate. They're stuck in anger. You might have wounded their ego, their pride. And that's all down in 3D reality. But where you really need to be is in the 4D perspective where you have compassion. You have patience. You have understanding. You have acceptance. And you can agree that you came together to create this beautiful child, but you're not meant to be together, right? Maybe your main purpose was to bring this beautiful being into the world and help it thrive. But the two of you weren't supposed to be romantically involved. And you can still be friends. And that's the hard part is some people can't even just be friends with that other person. And when I see that in couples, I'm just like, I'm bowing at them going, you're amazing. You know, you love your child so much. 

that you are able to put your hurt feelings aside and do the right thing. Well, there's also spiritual laws that go into play. And I'm famous for saying, you know, it's all the law. Whether it's spiritual law or man-made law, it's how you apply them. Yeah. And there's the law of reciprocity um i think other people know it as karma. What comes around goes around. What energy you send out You will get back. And the best energy in these kinds of situations is I wish you well. Yes. That is the best thing. I wish you well. And then the next part is forgiveness work. Yes. It starts with yourself. You have to start forgiving yourself for things that you did during that relationship that weren't your highest to your highest good. 

There are things, you know, no one's perfect. Right. So do some self-reflection. And the last thing you should do is get into another relationship until you've done the self-reflection. So that you know who you are and then you know what kind of individual you're looking for, who they are. Right. But the forgiveness work definitely with the self and then start learning how to forgive others. that they were doing the best that they knew with what they had. And I have seen, you know, I've been doing this for over 20 years, and I don't think there's a story people couldn't tell me that I wouldn't say, but I'll share a story with one person that did not learn forgiveness. I represented the husband, and he was unfaithful. The relationship wasn't working. He wanted a divorce. 

And, you know, the wife was agreeable. OK, fine. All this. Well, he ended up getting the house and all of a sudden he's calling because he's getting he's saying there's something wrong with the house. The wife was here, gave the house, you know, very nicely. And he couldn't figure out where the smell was coming from. He spent thousands and thousands of dollars there. trying to get carpets cleaned, all of this. What turned out is the wife had eaten shrimp, and she put shrimp tails in the curtain rods in the house. So what happened to the wife? All of the expenses that he went through, she ate. You know, that's the karma. You're going to get back what you did. And so that's just an example of what not to do. But there are people that can't let go. And I think you call them passive aggressive, where they are nice to your face, but behind your back, they're doing something else. And I do know within the divorce, there's a couple of lines. Usually with divorce, we're seeing good people in their worst moments. 

And courts know that, right? They know that it's stressful and it's hard. And the other thing about divorce is that it's a process. And if you use it the right way, it can be for your growth. And that would be looking at and doing the self-reflection. No, I fully agree because... I think for me, the big eye opener was learning about trauma bonding relationships and not many people know about that. What is a trauma bonding relationship? And then also learning about attachment styles and, and because attachment styles can change. And for me, when I got educated, you know, more in mental health and trauma and all these areas, I, I could start to reflect on my own life and the life of my, my clients and be like, that explains a lot. And once you have that, let's say it is doing your own self work on yourself, realizing like, okay, you know, this is the background that I came from. And this is the environment that I grew up in. Or like one gentleman, he had a, 

the most wonderful mom, unconditional love and stuff. But then when he went off to college, he met someone narcissistic and love bombing felt great for him. But then he, as we all know, those relationships sometimes don't end the way that you want them to do because they devalue you, then they discard you and you're left scratching your head going, what just happened? Mm-hmm. And so it really is important to, when anyone goes through any divorce or separation or breakup, that you take that time, as you said, to self-reflect and go within because we all play the villain and we play the good guy. We all do. And we have to take accountability for our part in... what red flags did I dismiss? Right. And where did I not speak my truth and use my voice? And why was I maybe afraid to be vulnerable? And what are there? Because there's always opportunities to stop and self-reflect and then forgive ourselves because we're perfectly imperfect. Nobody is perfect. Right. And 

Most times, you know, with the divorces, you talk to another opposing counsel and you'll get a totally different story. Different perspectives. And it's being able to see things from somebody else's perspective. You may disagree. Right. But can you at least see it and not just out of hand dismiss it? You know, because their perspective is based upon who they are, their belief system. And unspoken expectations that they just assume everybody else has. Correct. And people do not have the same expectations. No, they don't. Yes. And that's where I firmly believe in, you know, open-hearted communication because you might have one expectation of me and I can't read your mind. I don't know what your expectation is or what hoops you think I should jump through. 

And and it's. And it's examining, too, why you have these expectations. Where did they come from? Yes. And are they your expectations or were they somebody else's that you kind of went along for the ride? It's like that saying a lot of let's say if you grow up in a family that's Republican, you'll most likely vote Republican. Or if you grew up in a home where you were a Democrat. then most, you know, you're more likely to go off of that. But what is your views on it? And a lot of people, when they're asked that question, they're like, well, I don't know, that's just what my mom did or what my dad did or, you know, this is our, and they'll try to justify it. But it's like, hey, you're not, you don't need to defend yourself. It's just, you have free will. 

exercising that liberty of free will. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that's, you know, with the advice with the divorce, you know, everyone is different, but I think it's the emotional preparation that is so important. It is because it's, it's draining and some people can handle it and some people can't. Right. They lose themselves. They get identity erosion. And some people are just so... They can be just so angry. And it's not fair to anybody involved. And yeah, it's unfortunate. So I know that you have a strategy session that's about 30, 45 minutes long, a Zoom call that people can make. And I think it is great. And I know... On your website, you mentioned that it's free. Yes. Yes. If they go to my website, which is LiveLifeFully.net, they can get a free strategy session. I also offer a freebie. It's a mindset mastery guide that they can download. And I offer the strategy session as well as if they want a tarot card reading. And there's an awful lot of just freebies. 

free information, whether it's resources or blog posts that can really maybe help point people in the right direction when it comes to spiritual growth. That's beautiful. Great. Well, I'm also going to create a blog post with all your information so people can find you there as well on Master the Upper Rooms. So I am so blessed to connect with you today, Kelly. I've thoroughly enjoyed this whole conversation. Oh, me too, Carrie. I think this was a divine connection. Yes, I do. And I know you're going to have a lovely day and enjoy your grandkids because they really are a gift. I will. And he finally, I think, is sleeping. So we're good. Awesome. Well, I look forward to connecting with you again in the future. And you just have a really blessed day. You too, Carrie. All right. Bye. Bye.